Consistency: Wandering Thought #264
One of the most highly underrated qualities is consistency – of high quality itself. This contrasts with many striving to achieve high quality in their undertakings, in terms of product creation and service management, whose efforts often peter away, ending up with complacency when satisfied with having attained the barely and occasionally commendable.
For instance, a chef might be able to open a restaurant in the first place exactly because he can cook very well. But once the restaurant does well, it is easy for him to rest on his laurels of having good past reviews, and let the quality of his cooking deteriorate. The more his business booms, the easier it is to lose consistency in quality. Not aware of this, he might blame it on a spate of bad ‘luck’ or economy when his restaurant eventually winds up.
This also explains why some chefs will never lead a single successful restaurant, much less one capable of multiplying – because they are even more inconsistent in their cooking than the above chef. While it is good to do your stuff well, that which makes what you do truly good is how it is not only always good, but always becoming better too. High quality should at least be maintained with high consistency. And high quality should always increase with consistent improvements.
All these apply to human character too. Those we appreciate and admire most are not only consistent in their virtues and values, they are also always becoming more virtuous and thus more valuable. Such consistency is the basis of diligence and success, in both worldly and spiritual fields. Do not just be good once in a while – always be good. Do not just be as good as we were – always become better. This is how we will become the best.